The Value of Unpredictability in Relationships.
Edition #096
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The Newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
The Friendship Problem-Why Friendships Have Started To Feel Like Admin
In a very thought-provoking article, Rosie Spinks, writer, editor, and content strategist, writes about the phenomenon of dwindling friendships and how people who live in cities or ones who haven’t moved away from their networks(unlike her who moved to a smaller place away from London) or people who don’t stay indoors after 6 pm – are not happy with the state of their social lives. She tries to go back to analyse why many people, or as a society, we have got here.
Here are some thoughts and ideas for you to reflect and think:
Friendships are, by their very nature, made of friction. And friction is not just interrupting your day or life to help out a friend but also admitting you need the kind of help you cannot pay for or order yourself.
We are so burned out by our data-heavy, screen-based, supposedly friction-free lives that we no longer have the time or energy to engage in the kind of small, unfabulous, mundane, place-based friendships or acquaintance-ships that have nourished and sustained humans for literal centuries.
Those of us who have kids are realising how insane it is for two income-earning adults to attempt to raise a child without the unpaid, accessible help of a family or community close by.
We are so burned out by the process of staying afloat in a globalised, connected world that we simply don’t have the energy for the kind of in-person, easy interactions that might actually give us some energy and lifeforce back.
But in order for this all not to feel like yet more admin, it’s crucial to remember we are not machines.
Read the article here.
Inductive Economy: Siddharth Tripathi on Personality WBCs and Paths to Self-Discovery
The Inductive Economy engages with ideas that are non-consensus but right.
In this entertaining podcast, Vignesh speaks to Siddharth, who has a rich HR experience with a focus on performance, rewards, incentives, talent management and people analytics. Siddarth has worked across industries and geographies with reputed companies like GE, Aon Hewitt, Hay Group, Towers Watson, Zomato and Times Internet.
Here are some topics that are being discussed during the conversation which may be of interest to you:
Why does HR not get a seat on the table, and the need for HR to look at issues from a business lens.
Why Culture should be the CEO's agenda, not the agenda of a company's HR function.
Sid’s learning as a seeker, his views on individuality, humility, genes and conditioning of human beings.
Albums, Top Albums rated by Siddharth and Vignesh.
Listen to some honest and excellent answers to the rapid-fire questions on life, books, procrastination, etc.
You can listen to the entire podcast on:
Apple Podcast | Amazon Music | Anchor
The "Greenhouse-In-Box" Empowering Farmers In India
Sathya Raghu Mokkapati is the Cofounder of Kheyti and CosmosGreen.
In this video, Sathya talks about how the lives and earnings of small farmers in India are incredibly fragile. Due to climate risk, their earning is hugely volatile as heat, pests, and disease can disrupt their yield and income.
Here are some ideas that he shares on agri-solutions they have come up with to address this problem:
Eight in ten of the world’s farmers are small landholders. Therefore, there is a need to develop an agri-solution which is affordable and scalable.
‘Greenhouse-in-a-box’ are small, low-cost, easy-to-build structures aimed at helping farmers overcome the heat of sizzling summers and increase their monthly revenues.
‘Greenhouse-in-a-box’ is an affordable, modular greenhouse bundled with complete stack services that use 90% less water, grow seven times more food, and give farmers a steady, dependable income.
Only small steps can help create a large-scale impact. They have 1500 farmers enrolled in their program today and aim to reach 50,000 farmers by 2027.
You can click the above link and watch the entire video.
The Value of Unpredictability in Relationships.
Rosie Spinks's article triggered many thoughts on what makes relationships valuable and authentic.
If we start analysing our relationships deeply with people - for example, it could be with your colleagues at work or within your family - ones that are strong and sustained over a long time are the ones that are spontaneous and intuitive. Since human beings are not machines, as Rosie writes, the value of ‘being-in-the-moment’ while expressing appreciation or gratitude or being forgiving or being angry or demanding has a certain sense of unpredictability in how one behaves and the freedom to express one's feelings at that moment. This is essential to building enduring relationships. These behaviours cannot be programmed. Hence, when relationships are programmed, they don’t last.
Relationships can’t be measured by SLAs(Service Level Agreements)!
As people, we are rapidly losing the ability to withstand unpredictability in anything we experience - when we interact with people or the services we get from businesses. This is primarily influenced by the narrative that everything can be automated and made predictable with the use of technology.
Just take a moment to think about the way you now remember and wish for birthdays and anniversaries, when you bank and manage your finances, plan your travel and stay, buy products and services online or offline, even get doctor’s appointments, etc. It’s tech-enabled and programmed.
Therefore, even this expectation of predictability extends to friends, colleagues, family, and the community we live with. Thus, it gives many a notion that everything can be automated and planned in life. But, what is forgotten is that predictability takes away the excitement and often leaves a feeling that such actions in relationships are templated and fake. Life by nature is unpredictable, so how can relationships be made predictable?
Embracing unpredictability in relationships
Think about it for a minute. The most memorable moments in relationships that genuinely move you are acts of surprise and ones that are done instinctively. They are not programmed or not algorithmically driven. It can be:
An act of being concerned in a business relationship and not being transactional - say, by the hospital staff or a retail associate in the store recommending the right design for you or a hotel staff making your stay comfortable by asking the right questions or a restaurant that you visit frequently remembering and doing a surprise birthday celebration or helping a colleague at the office when they don’t expect etc.
In a family or friend situation, it could be close relatives of yours making a surprise visit to your place or, an unexpected gift that you receive from your spouse or friend or, a family wedding time with the extended family from different places or a naming ceremony of a baby in the family when somebody who you did not expect shows up or a sudden outing you plan with your parents or friends landing-up in a weekend without notice to catch up or your neighbour sharing food which they made etc.
These ‘being-in-the-moment’ experiences are etched in your mind and act as catalysts for stronger relationships. Hence, the need to embrace and accept unpredictability in relationships is essential. These drive deeper social belongingness between people and a closer community feeling amongst each other. Also, it helps people become adaptable and adjust better in a home or, office or business environment, be welcoming of people around them, live with people with diverse viewpoints and accept them as they are.
The ones who embrace these moments or situations - though it may disrupt their regular schedule or act as an interruption and may look as though they are wasting time with people- have more patience and empathy, are willing to collaborate better and manage chaotic situations better than others, are more flexible, adaptable and exhibit a more open mind.
Embracing unpredictability in relationships builds predictability in deeper, more long-lasting, genuine relationships.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
A hyper-connected world creates social loneliness in the real world.
HR can only get a seat on the table when they start looking at company issues through a business lens.
Overcoming climate risks needs innovative and affordable agri-solutions for the majority of the small land-holding farmers across the world.
Embrace unpredictability in relationships.